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hello welcome to wild about gardens
this is a little common frog now
those of you who watch my videos
may remember that i reared some indoors
this year and then released them into
this macro pond when they started to
sort of get off vegetarian diets
and they're down here all the time now
um
they're really so much so that i had to
cut the vegetation
away from this pond because
there wasn't a lot of light getting
through but they're here
all of the time and uh they're about an
inch and a half long now there's three
in here at the moment i just managed to
get this little guy as he surfaced but
they're i'm really pleased
i've got so many that i can't cut my
uh lawn which is going to have to be cut
at the end of the year but hopefully
they'll have moved off by the time i do
it but normally by this time of year i
would have given it um a quick once-over
and just to chop this the flowers that
seeded down but i have to leave it at
the moment at the moment but uh really
pleased that they they've done so well
so leading on to
the questions and the advice i can give
about solitary bee habitats
this little bunch of solitary bee
habitats here this is a new one the up
right there there's not i think there's
one or two or three holes populated but
not a lot
this is east facing that's really
important that's the
the main thing on this list is the
position of the insect hotels
solitary bee habitats whatever you want
to call them
these have done quite well they're near
water which is really important if you
can do it
these have had osmia roofer
leaf cutter bees miniature bees and this
this guy here look perfect opportune
moment here this is a leaf cutter be
just finishing off
the doorway
to his uh
his sanctuary there where he's laid
larvae in there and he's just stuffing
the hole you can see
perfect examples of of
where they've cut the doorways out here
too
um
to plug those holes
so having leaves nearby for leaf cutter
bees is not a bad idea this is east
facing now you need to be
either east or west facing to allow
light to
warm up
the uh the habitats now
east is my preference because
the morning light is important it would
it would warm it up and warm the insects
up
ready for action but it doesn't seem to
make a difference because when i come
home from work
uh about four or five five o'clock
it's buzzing on the west fence which i'm
going to take you up to in a moment
so
east or west is fine you you could go
south facing uh for if you can do it
um
but that's that's my preference so if we
go up the top
we'll continue up there because that's
where the most most of my habitats are
as you know
if we can get through
the safari park now my wife keeps urging
me to cut to move this one or cut him
down but i'm not doing it until he goes
to seed because these are really sharp
these teasels okay so
this is the main area
where most of my habitats are
so we've mentioned the position east and
west and near water if you can
i would say that the second most
important thing is they need to be
sheltered from the wind
this is to prevent
obviously both to aid the insects from
landing because they need to locate the
hole they were just that and if it's
windy this is very difficult for them
so you need to be in a sheltered
location
and
also that would prevent
the rain from splashing into the holes
not sure if they would know that but
certainly it would help
now
the roofs all of my habitats have roofs
but i've noticed over the years i've
been doing this how important
it is now i'm not sure if it's important
from shelter from heat i don't believe
so because
in
you know they don't mind flying in the
heat it keeps the larvae warm warms up
the habitat
it could be partially because of that
maybe sometimes it gets too hot but i
believe more importantly it's from rain
and naturally in the wild they would
have a preference to a nice sheltered
location from above and you can see you
know if we use this one as an example
this is
really obvious here this this is the
main 4000 hole guy that i've done and
there are you know at the bottom here
there there it has been used there's a
it's quite a lot there
there's very few at the moment in the
middle i have seen them going in i saw
them a minute ago but you as you go up
it becomes obvious that
towards the overhang
there is a lot going on
and uh
there definitely is a preference to
having that overhang there in my opinion
we're talking maybe 50 of the holes have
been populated there
so that's that's a really really
important one i believe
somebody wrote in the comments called
kim thank you very much about the types
of wood and chemicals in particular and
it got me thinking um i have added that
to the list you know is there a
preference for older wood well i would
say
if we cover chemicals and older wood
together
i would say
they both can play a factor now the the
chemical one that maybe bees can detect
odor i don't know
but they would uh from from a
you know poor common sense perspective i
would use wood if you can that hasn't
been chemically treated now this one
here
would have been pressure treated this is
new wood um
but it hasn't stopped the bees now the
long-term effects of uh a talon art
tanalized wood i don't know
there are some advantages to using newer
wood when you're drilling it it tends to
be less fibrous
we'll cover that later
and because
in nature new wood is wet and it's
sort of more dense because of that
moisture so when you cut a hole it tends
to be cleaner
but certainly i think go with common
sense if it's got chemicals try and
avoid it older wood is good because it
replicates nature
and certainly when i've used old wood it
does very well indeed
when you look at the difference between
these two this one is made using older
wood and that has always done
tremendously well particularly with
the the miniature bees there which have
the scoper
underneath the abdomen you can see that
they're kind of orange and they tap the
flowers i'll have to look up the uh
the make and model of that bee but
they're kind of
they're doing so well in this garden
this year i would
probably guess a couple of thousand in
this on this wall alone
so moving on to harder
wood now
one of the fascinating things i've
noticed in the last week was was this
guy here
now
i've started making longer habitats
purely because of that overhang and
trying to make the roof long
to try and encourage them to use the
whole length of the habitat this one
here was again made in an old french
fence post and when i was drilling it i
noticed that there was a knot in the
middle which was harder to drill i
didn't pay any attention however when i
was looking the other night i noticed
that the bees certainly do now i don't
know if you can see that sort of area
i'm talking about the bee's just landing
there now
that's much denser wood you can see the
the holes are cleaner to the holes
adjacent to it which i get i mentioned
the fibrousness of older wood and
and
they certainly do like it less sort of
uh
obstructed
and these holes are a lot cleaner and
they are i've almost all been used on
that knot
try and point to it so you know exactly
where i'm talking to but there's a bee
coming out now you can't miss it
and that whole section has been
populated as opposed to the
left and right which haven't been
touched yet i imagine they will move on
because they they won't you know it's
free it's free uh
accommodation so they will use it
but there's definitely a preference for
more dense wood so if you can get some
recycled hardwood you might be onto
something there
so the depth of the holes now we've
covered this many times but
i believe the deeper the hole can be
while still leaving a section behind the
hole for insulation is a good
rule of thumb and it's certainly the way
i do these if it's a four inch piece of
wood i try and go two and a half three
inches
into it
so going back to the holes
i always
rub down the holes once i've drilled
them
to make the actual entrance very clean
and that's kind of evidenced again by
that knot
which shows that the cleaner the hole
both inside and on the surface is is
going to be beneficial and a preference
to the bees
i always pva mine so going back to the
chemical issue pva is kind of ph neutral
it's not harmful
nowhere near as much as other
sort of voc chemicals volatile or
organic compounds which i would
definitely steer clear of you know pva
is kind of a middle ground it's ph
neutral ish and i've always
pvaid mine
and that what that does is after i've
rubbed them down drilled the holes
rubbed them down pvate them what that
does it just toughens up that surface
stops water seeping in because
then no way are they going to go on
these habitats if they're soaking wet
and the wood's kind of soaking wet in
nature what i imagine is they're looking
for
habitats that are sheltered to the point
they don't get wet moving on to the
chemicals a bit more you know
it's a very difficult one because a lot
of wood does have chemicals but uh speak
to your
local timber supply to see if they've
got off cuts of wood which is what i do
sometimes they'll charge you sometimes
they'll just give them to you and then
leave them outside for a a year or so
in in the in the full weather just to
let the chemical compounds die down if
there are any there
i do put a tilt
on some habitats you can see this one up
here has got it's kind of leaning out
and that one too that's a one i've sort
of reconditioned it's a very my oldest
one actually that one that's about six
years old and almost all the holes had
been filled so i re-drilled some more
but they've all got tilts along there
and they've all got tilts and and i
think i don't think the bees will notice
but it's definitely helpful with the
rain
now the number of holes this is the
final thing really i started off when i
did this and thought oh i won't bunch
them together too tightly
and this is the first one i did and look
they're very spaced out the holes and
sporadic and
there's no reason to do that if you if
you really want to save as many bees as
you can
chuck as many holes as you can in there
and this this proves it because because
they're
where you'd think they might not want to
be
in close proximity uh the opposite is
true
i've got several species on on this one
all
close to each other not seeming
seemingly not to care that they're near
a hole that's already been populated in
fact
you might argue that it's strength in
numbers and that
there's less chance of their nest being
predated by a uh sort of itchnaman wasp
or a
parasitical wasp um if it's close to
loads of others when the choice is there
for for the wasp
and this this would prove it i mean up
at the top here it's all it's like a
little city they've just populated most
of the holes up there so
don't worry about the number of holes
in a habitat the more the better you'll
get more bees and there's more choice
for the bee
um
i think that's about it that there
aren't many other things that are
important if i think of them i'll add
them to the comments below if you can
think of any others please let me know
because i'd be interested in hearing
them
i hope this is of some benefit please uh
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attenborough is the patron so it's very
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